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The only thing I am concerned about is the loss of fragmentation of the kernel-modules.
This may sound strange at first but who guarantees that a generic HDA-driver allows you to disable unneeded features?

Glad to hear there's a test-suite now, even if it is only rudimentary. At least theres SOME way of testing for regressions at this point. Glad to hear that theres now a generic driver to handle most cards, its kind of necessary with a monolithic kernel really because its not like windows where if we dont have audio at install-time we can just go out and download an .exe package to install the driver.

What are you talking about? You can do exactly that. That's why we have kernel modules.

Who cares? Such cards are only usable when your music is nothing, but midi files.

Intel HDA is a "standardised" interface for talking to (simple) audio chips, and as such it has nothing to do with audio quality. As said in the original article, it is for example used for HDMI audio too...

The problem with internal analog audio is simply that the inside of a laptop/desktop usually has a lot of electromagnetic noise, which is difficult to shield from.

Only because they don't know any better, simply because most people have never played with an actual soundcard newer than a SoundBlaster16 or if it was newer were dealing with a Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit which isn't above integrated audio standards.

Originally Posted by Calinou

Sound quality? Are you another Sound Blaster salesman? There is visually () no difference between an integrated and a dedicated sound card, apart from price and CPU usage.

Hah, clearly you're part of the previously stated category, because such a statement shows you've never actually listened to a proper modern soundcard, the difference is like going from adlib to "cd music". I want you to try something, either buy or find a friend who has a modern sound card, now holding everything the same try playing an mp3 or an ogg or a game or something with the card and then without it, once you've done that come back to us with the results. It might surprise you.

Hah, clearly you're part of the previously stated category, because such a statement shows you've never actually listened to a proper modern soundcard, the difference is like going from adlib to "cd music". I want you to try something, either buy or find a friend who has a modern sound card, now holding everything the same try playing an mp3 or an ogg or a game or something with the card and then without it, once you've done that come back to us with the results. It might surprise you.

Hello Sound Blaster salesman. I don't want to spend 300 euros on a sound card + an headset (real headsets are wired and have mics, too). Also, I don't have optic fiber (FLAC was created by bzip2 developers, just replace "Xeon" by "optic fiber" in the sentence "Everyone Has A Xeon"), so why would I use lossless compression when lossy (320kbps, 48khz ogg) is more than enough?

Hello Sound Blaster salesman. I don't want to spend 300 euros on a sound card + an headset (real headsets are wired and have mics, too). Also, I don't have optic fiber (FLAC was created by bzip2 developers, just replace "Xeon" by "optic fiber" in the sentence "Everyone Has A Xeon"), so why would I use lossless compression when lossy (320kbps, 48khz ogg) is more than enough?

Audiophiles need to stop bragging.

I'm not an audiophile, and you don't need to be to be able to tell that difference because it is very literally like going from adlib to "cd music" just by replacing the card even on $30 speakers, quite frankly whenever I hear the "You don't need a soundcard" It's like someone using pre-sandybridge intel graphics asking why they should use a videocard when gaming. The difference is seriously that much.

And on the topic of gaming, you know the section in Crysis Warhead, where the troop transport crashes and then things start microstuttering all to hell? That's 3D audio being calculated and the sound codec hammering the CPU with interrupt requests to try to do it, that goes away when you put in a sound card, and it helps to smooth out things in general, because the problem with microstuttering it creates is not CPU Usage, it's that it's interrupting the CPU.

Oh and while I'm at this: The biggest boost you can do to the performance of your games is not getting a new CPU or a better Video Card (assuming you're starting out with at least a Radeon ?670 level card which current gen integrated graphics are close enough to), though those will help of course but what's really going to give you the biggest boost is actually maxing out your memory and setting up a RAM drive. With a RAM drive and a sound card, a Radeon HD 5770 can play Crysis Warhead completely maxed out at 1080p, and it plays so very different when you do that.